Blue Heaven (2)
It was the eighth loop since we'd entered the subway.
Baek had always been a maddeningly difficult opponent for me.
Thankfully, Sapi had gone off to face him — and with him gone, so was that troublesome enemy. Which, of course, meant that I was now fighting the one in front of me all by myself, without Sapi.
Rekk, having judged the situation to be very much in her favor, curled the corners of her mouth upward.
The chain in her hand spun round and round, the shriek of metal tearing through air filling the entire subway station.
"Lebetri. Honestly, it doesn't matter to me what kind of woman you are."
"..."
"What matters is that killing you hands me an enormous amount of power!"
Shraaak—!!
The chain shot out like a serpent, and I raised my sword to meet it.
And then.
"...?"
I blocked it. Nothing touched the blade.
The chain was still slicing through empty air.
Then—
Thwack!!
Blood burst from my back.
"Kgh—!"
My body pitched forward. When? The chain was clearly still—
I twisted around to look behind me. The chain was still flying toward me.
"What the..."
Rekk let out a soft snort of laughter.
"See it?"
"..."
"An attack that hasn't even hit you yet."
The moment those words ended—
WHUMP!!
This time my thigh tore open. The movement of the chain I could see, and the movement of the chain that actually struck, were two entirely different things.
"Heh heh heh."
The chain went on swimming through empty air. But on my body, the wounds only kept multiplying.
My neck. My head. My thigh.
Blood soaked into the floor.
'I can't trust what I see.'
But how? If I couldn't trust my eyes, what was I supposed to trust?
Shralak!!
The chain cleaved the air again. This time, I didn't watch the chain I could see. I watched Rekk's arm.
Wrist. Shoulder. Hips. The direction the force traveled.
'There.'
I twisted my body.
Whoosh!!
The chain whipped through a space where nothing had been.
"...You dodged?"
For the first time, Rekk's expression stiffened.
"Well, fine... once could be luck."
SHRAAAK!!
This time, three at once — chains came crashing in from every direction. In my eyes, not a single one had gotten close yet. But—
Her elbow was dropping. Her hips were rotating left, strength driving down into her right foot.
Not the chains I could see. I was reading her body.
Whoosh!! Whoosh!! Whoosh!!
One after another, they whistled past empty air. My body slipped through every single one by a paper's width.
Rekk's eyes wavered.
"...Why?"
"..."
"Why isn't my ability working on you?"
I raised my sword slowly.
"No."
"...?"
"I still can't see them."
"..."
"But."
Strength gathered in the hand wrapped around my sword.
"People move before their chains do."
Rekk's smile vanished. And in that instant—
Lebetri's body moved for the first time not in a straight line, but along a slanted arc.
It belonged to no sword style, to no one. A trajectory even the Lebetri of the past had never once chosen.
Rekk yanked her chains back on reflex, but it was already too late. Lebetri hadn't chased the chains' trajectories at all — she had simply already arrived at the one spot Rekk would have to stand in to launch her next attack.
"Wha...?"
Rekk looked utterly thrown by the situation, but I only murmured, low:
"My sword—"
The blade rose slowly toward Rekk's throat.
"—is not a sword that cuts what it sees."
Shff.
One chain dropped powerlessly to the floor.
"Hak... hahk..."
Rekk stumbled backward a beat too late. That strike had absolutely been swung with the intent of cutting her down as well.
"Ha! Your ability makes anything you touch show up three seconds late in your opponent's vision!"
Shraak!
As the words left my mouth, a chain split the air and came flying at me. Because I could only see where it had been three seconds ago, the chain before my eyes was nothing more than an afterimage of what had already passed. But instead of dodging, I took a step forward.
Shrrlk.
The chain coiled around my prosthetic arm. The impact felt like it would tear my whole body apart, but I endured it and stayed on my feet.
Apparently the sight struck her as funny, because Rekk sneered:
"Even knowing my ability, you can't dodge it!"
"Wrong."
I answered, short and flat.
"I could have dodged."
Rekk looked flustered for a moment, but her gaze soon hardened, and she wrenched the chain with all her might. Metal gouged deep into my prosthetic. Sparks scattered.
But I had no intention of backing down.
What flashed through my mind was my family. It was Sapi, too. And it was the countless versions of me who had died — that moment when not one of them had managed to escape.
This time would be different. All I had to do was hold.
With that thought, I poured strength into my prosthetic arm.
"Because even this pain... is mine."
KRRK!!
The chain sank deep into the prosthetic. This wasn't a move to sever it. It was a move to reach Rekk, the one holding the other end.
One step. Another step.
Watching me, Rekk struck at me with her other chains. But the more my wounds piled up, the firmer my footsteps became. Death was not a memory to be discarded — it was a memory I would walk beside from now on.
Because every one of the mes who had died was gripping that sword together with the me of now.
Still clutching the chain, I took one more step. This time, I didn't choose the fastest path. Nor the one that hurt least, nor the quickest. It was the path that would let me swing my sword to the very end.
Shff.
That sound wasn't a chain being cut. Blood burst from Rekk's side, and only then did her eyes fly wide open.
"Huh...?"
Grasping what was happening, she hastily swung her chains. But before her wrist moved, her shoulder had already moved — and before her shoulder moved, her foot had already pushed off the ground.
Now I could see it. Not the chains. Her next choice.
Shff.
I cut the incoming chain clean out of the air.
"That's impossible..."
She stumbled backward.
"My ability is definitely—"
"Yeah. It's working."
I raised my sword slowly.
"Your chains still look late to me."
"..."
"But that's fine."
I leveled the point of the blade at Rekk.
"I don't fight trusting only what I can see."
Her expression crumbled. She snatched up every remaining chain and swung them like a woman gone mad.
SHRALALALALAK!!
Chains poured in from every direction. Ceiling. Floor. Pillars. Walls.
Chains swallowed the entire subway station, and every visible trajectory lied about the true one. A single misstep, and my head would leave my shoulders.
But I didn't stop. One step. Another.
An arm broke. My side split open. Blood ran down my cheek. Even so, I never let go of my sword.
Honestly, it hurt. It hurt like hell. And I was afraid.
The mes of previous loops had died in pain like this, over and over. Those selves aren't here now. Only I exist.
But the pain — the pain remained. And because it did, I knew.
How far I could endure a given wound. At exactly what moment my knees would buckle. How much pain it took before my thinking blurred. Every failure left behind by my dying selves was pointing the present me down the road.
I could predict a chain flying in from the right and slip past it. Even with my left side struck, I could keep moving.
I didn't choose the safest path. Nor the one that arrived fastest. Only the path that would let me swing my sword to the very end — that one alone, I chose.
At last I stood directly in front of Rekk. The chains slid from her hands.
"Why..."
Rekk's voice trembled.
"Why won't you go down?"
I didn't answer right away. I simply lifted my sword.
"...Because I've already fallen plenty of times."
"..."
"This time, I'm not leaving those deaths behind."
A terror that hadn't been there moments before was rising in Rekk's eyes. The eyes of a person facing death. Having died countless times myself, looking into them stirred something strange in me.
Shff.
The chain dropped from Rekk's hand. I had severed precisely the tendons of her wrists — no more than that. Enough to leave her alive.
Rekk sank to her knees, staring at her own hands.
"Why did you spare me?"
I lowered my sword and said:
"Killing you would certainly be the fastest way."
"..."
"But, from now on—"
I passed by Rekk's side.
"—choosing a road that isn't the fast one is a gamble for me, too."
A gamble. Like when I took Sapi's hand. A choice whose outcome I couldn't know.
Still, this time, I meant to accept the outcome, whatever it turned out to be.
Only then — late, as always — did Rekk's chains come collapsing down to the floor.
Clatter.
The battle was over. But this sword, walked alongside by every dying version of me, had only just taken its first step.
Bang!! Bang!! Bang!! Bang!!
Gunfire rolled out in the distance. The sound was coming from the direction where Sapi was. I gripped my sword again. My body was spent, but I couldn't stop. I didn't think Sapi would lose. And yet I worried all the same.
Running toward the sound of the gunshots, I began to pass things I could only assume were human corpses.
Then a wrecked shop came into view, its walls and floor riddled with bullet scars. In the middle of the store lay Baek.
A short distance away stood Sapi, a thin wisp of smoke still curling from the muzzle of his gun.
"Sapi!"
Sapi turned his head slowly. Thankfully, there didn't appear to be any serious wounds on him. Only then did some of the tension locked in my shoulders drain away.
"Is it over?"
"Yeah."
He answered shortly, then looked past me.
"And Rekk?"
"I let her live."
"..."
Sapi's eyes narrowed. Probably about to press me on why I hadn't killed her.
"Well... all right."
"Huh?"
All right. Just those words. Nothing more.
Sapi had always pursued efficiency, and what I'd just done was about as far from efficient as it gets. Yet he brushed it off like it was nothing. That wasn't something I was used to.
Sapi walked over and touched my cheek.
"What are you doing?! Out of nowhere?!"
"Healing you."
A warm golden glow seeped in through my cheek and flowed through my entire body. One by one, my wounds closed.
"Thank—"
The instant I tried to say it, a critical realization struck me.
"Sapi."
"What?"
"Where's my smoked meat?"
"..."
Sapi's steps stopped dead.
"The place is this much of a wreck — can we even eat here?"
"I'll make you smoked meat."
"And where exactly are you going to get meat?"
"I can find some in the warehouse."
Before I could ask anything else, Sapi was already walking toward what looked like it might house a storage warehouse.